


Unsettled

by suitesamba



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Jealousy, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Old Men In Love, Pining, Retirement, character death (not John/Sherlock)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:37:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3527945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recently-widowed John takes a look at his life and finds it lacking. It's been twenty years since Sherlock returned from the dead, but he's never stopped thinking things should have turned out very differently. Sherlock has been living in Sussex for five years now, but it takes the news that he has a new partner in crime to get John out of London. A tale of pining, and jealousy, jumping to the wrong conclusion, and old men in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Leaving London

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my good friend abrae with the hope that she'll keep smiling.

Somehow, some way, life has gotten away from him.

Somehow, twenty years after marrying Mary Morstan, two years after losing her, six months after Holly left for Brazil for her delayed gap year, he realizes that he’s old, and alone, and the regret that he’s tamped down for every single one of those twenty years sneaks in around the sleeping corners of his mind and invades his peace – the peace he never asked for, never really wanted at all.

It was so much easier to keep it at bay with another warm body in his bed, when there were two teacups drying in the rack, when Holly’s Ornithology books were strewn about the house, her gear stowed in a growing heap in the extra bedroom.

It was easier to keep himself anchored in the here and now when he had Mary to care for. When Holly had stayed those extra months to care for him, to keep him company. When he had distractions outside of work. 

He hasn’t seen Sherlock since Mrs. Hudson’s funeral eight months ago. Has never visited him in Sussex, and Sherlock’s been gone from 221B for five years now. Time with Sherlock, when Mary was alive, was always tense, loaded. A time bomb ticking, air thick with something he dared not name.

(He can name it now. Anticipation. Desire. Need.)

They remained friends. All those years. Not the kind of friends they were before Barts. Before Mary. Not the kind of friends who meet at the pub for a pint. But the kind of friends who were genuinely glad to see each other when they did meet up, and dropped back into their old ways, their old patterns, but only for as long as John could pretend he had no other life. An hour, sometimes, or three, or four, but never a day or a weekend or an overnight. Never long enough for a ten, or even an eight.

It was always hard to leave him. 

And when he did, as he traveled from Sherlock to Mary, from 221B to home, the weight of guilt strangled him every time. 

When Sherlock left – escaped, John sometimes thinks – John promised to visit. Promised it wouldn’t matter – the distance, the time. Made Sherlock promise to call whenever he was in London. 

Hugged him goodbye. Let the hug linger longer than strictly proper. Hugged him with body and soul, let his body tell Sherlock he felt like he was losing his best friend.

Mary’s diagnosis came three weeks later.

She wasn’t the love of his life, but he loved her. They weren’t the happiest of couples, but they were happy. He would have thought it nirvana, he knows, had he not had the whispered hint of the other, thrumming through his veins. Had he been a braver man. A man willing to take risks. Not the kind of risks that put him in hospital more than once. No - the other kind. The kind that exposed you. Left you vulnerable. Put you front and center with the words on your lips, the admission, with no idea if you were destroying everything you’d built, when really, it was enough – Jesus Christ _never_ enough - the way it was.

He reads about Sherlock in the papers sometimes. He’s not retired in Sussex – not exactly. He’s something of a celebrity there, as he was here, and gets involved in cases that stump the police. Not quite so high profile, but curious. John always texts Sherlock when he reads one – just to let him know he notices. 

Or that he’s still alive, and well, and going about the business of living.

Sherlock always texts back, but the exchange eventually slows, and neither actually ever phones the other. John has tried, but Sherlock isn’t much for phone conversations. The pauses lengthen, grow uncomfortable. John sometimes wonders if Sherlock puts the phone on speaker and wanders away to check on the hives.

Sherlock is aging well. Far better than John is aging, anyway. His hair is still dark, greying at the temples, true, but thick and curly. He wears it longer now than he once did, and managed to look proper and distinguished at the funeral. John came in with Holly, but Sherlock sat with them, and John was wedged between Sherlock and his daughter. He caught them glancing at each other more than once, and finally realized they were worried about him – protecting _him_. Which was all wrong, because it was _Sherlock_ he was worried about – Sherlock who’d been so close to Mrs. Hudson all these years. 

He knew their concern was well placed. It hadn’t been that long since Mary died, since they’d sat together like this at her funeral, with John’s arm around Holly, Holly’s head on his shoulder, and Sherlock beside him, back ramrod straight, a solid half inch of space separating them. He remembered when they’d stood after the service, how Sherlock had reached over and brushed something off his coat sleeve, then given him that awkward smile.

He could count the times on one hand when Sherlock had touched him like that when he wasn’t hurt or in danger. Touched him at all.

Later, he’d caught Holly and Sherlock alone outside, talking together near the black car that had delivered both Mycroft and Sherlock here. He heard Holly say ‘dad’ and ‘dating’ and hoped to God she wasn’t telling Sherlock about his disastrous blind date with the mother of one of her friends.

He finds himself thinking of Sherlock all the time lately. Well, since Holly’s been gone, anyway. While Holly was still here, they’d spent quite a bit of time together. He’d even gone with her to Aberdeen for a week. She’d insisted he’d love it. The birds were astonishing there, she said, and he’d love the puffins and kestrels. 

And she was right. He’d loved it there. And the birds were interesting, as birds go. But even more so was the story in the local paper about a cold case, a triple homicide, and a new lead the local police were pursuing. And the local restaurant they’d frequented, with the proprietor who reminded him of Angelo, and the waiter who’d placed a candle on the table as Holly hid a grin behind her hand and rolled her eyes at John.

It had ended on a bit of a sad note, that trip. He and Holly had taken a last walk along the coastal path. It was spring, and the wildflowers were blooming, and the birds beginning to nest. It was a wild place, craggy, on cliffs overlooking the sea far below.

“Mum would have loved it here,” Holly had said, standing with her arms out, wing-like, facing the ocean.

John had had to shake his head to clear it, chasing away thoughts of Sherlock darting about, scraping lichen off rocks, on his hands and knees in a patch of wildflowers, studying bees at eye-level. Holly had squeezed his hand at his fond smile, not suspecting that Mary was the furthest thing from his mind.

And now, in the house he’d shared with Mary all those years, the house they’d bought when Holly was a toddler, the house with the crayon on the walls and worn recliners facing the telly, he looks around at the tell-tale signs of a man who’s settled.

Settled in. Settled for comfortable. Settled for familiar. Settled into a routine. 

Familiar. Comfortable. 

Boring.

(Safe.)

He hasn’t worked since a few months before Mary died, save some locum work here and there for old friends and colleagues. There is nothing keeping him here. A vacation would be nice – it’s been a year since he went to the North Shore with Holly. Somewhere warmer this time – somewhere south. 

He can’t say what it is that has kept him from visiting Sherlock, though his departure came right on top of Mary’s illness. She and Sherlock got along well enough, but not well enough to suggest a visit when she was ill. After Mary, John had his hands full with Holly, and her own grief, and convincing her he was just fine, that she should go on with her plans to spend her gap year in South America. She thought she was taking care of him. He knew that, and allowed it, and – well – enjoyed it, for what it was worth. But Holly is his daughter, not his best friend, not his partner. He loves her fiercely, but children need wings, they need to find their own way in the world, their own special someone to share life’s journey.

It’s a chance meeting with Lestrade that gets him out of his recliner and out of London.

They meet in a park. John is sitting on a bench reading and Lestrade is walking his dog. He’s got a desk job now, but it’s Saturday, and he looks good – trim and healthy. The dog is a corgi, and it sniffs John exuberantly then plops down at his feet and licks his shoe.

Lestrade settles down on the bench beside him, and it’s like old times. They see each other now and then, but John’s not exactly been the most social of friends the last few years. They chat about cases, and a few old friends, and Lestrade mentions that Sherlock’s solving cases with someone new – chap named Holbrook, and had John met him yet?

John manages to get through the visit without Lestrade realizing he’s kicked his heart into a new rhythm. He’s gripping his fists so tightly that he gouges his nails into his palms, leaving deep crescents. He’s jumpy, and touchy, unsettled.

Holbrook. Who the hell is Holbrook? Why hasn’t Sherlock mentioned him? 

John digs deep into his closet for the old duffel, carelessly pushing aside the modern roller bags in front of it. He feels better than he has in years as he packs, filling it with clothes he seldom wears these days. Worn jumpers, comfortable shirts, jeans he’s had for a decade or more. He steps out of his khaki trousers and pulls on a pair of faded jeans, unaccountably pleased that they fit. He pulls an old jumper over his shirt, then stares at himself in the mirror, and thinks he looks both familiar and ridiculous, a grey-haired man of sixty wearing faded jeans with frayed hems and a stretched-out jumper, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He turns away, zips his duffel and throws it over his shoulder.

One last slow turn, and his eyes come to rest on the photograph of Mary hanging over the chest of drawers. He stares at it a long moment, his mouth set in a thin line, then walks slowly toward it.

“It’s time,” he says. And he reaches forward, as if to brush the hair from her eyes, but his hands come to rest on the frame of the photo. He jerks it quickly upward, sets it aside and quickly twists the dial on the safe hidden behind it.

Seconds later, he’s holding the gun he hasn’t touched in years. He has no idea if he’ll need it, but it doesn’t seem right to wear these clothes, to tote this duffle, to head off to change the course of his life without it.

He switches the light off as he leaves, but he doesn’t hang the photo up again, and he doesn’t look back.


	2. Only One Queen per Hive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John meets the myseterious Holbrook and draws some conclusions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part three is in the works - look for it this coming weekend.

Chapter 2

Sherlock’s home in Sussex is a cottage that sits well back from the road. It’s brick and frame and a bit of stone with the traditional thatched roof of a farm cottage of the area. There doesn’t seem to be a bit of symmetry in the structure – even the single dormer window sits a bit left of center. The cottage is old, but well-cared for, fronted by shrubbery too high for the ground-story windows. The place is almost too chaotic for John’s orderly mind, but he sees how it would appeal to Sherlock. 

He takes his time studying the house as he pulls up the drive. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, and he can make out a light inside, though there’s no sign of a car present. He parks and sits in the driver’s seat, staring at the house for several minutes before he takes a deep, fortifying breath and opens the door. His duffel lies across the back seat and he glances at it, but leaves it in the car. Appearing at Sherlock’s door with a duffel over his shoulder seems a bit too forward, too pathetic.

There’s movement inside when he knocks, but when the door opens, he’s not greeted by Sherlock Holmes.

The man who opens the door looks older than Sherlock, and nearly as tall. He’s carrying some extra weight on his slight frame, and wearing what looks like a newer version of Sherlock’s very old dressing gown over cream-coloured silk pajama bottoms, with a sash knotted at the waist. He’s clean shaven, with frameless glasses perched on a thin, long nose. He looks at John with small, shrewd eyes, then smiles and steps back. He seems inordinately pleased, given he’s never met John, and should have no idea who he is.

But he _does_ know who John is. 

“Dr. Watson. Do come in.” 

Despite the years that have passed since John lived life on the edge with Sherlock, he has never forgotten the feeling of being at the center of a whirlwind, trying to hold himself in place while a maelstrom rages around him. And he feels that now, in a way, that he’s stepped into an alternate reality where strange men he’s never met know his name and seem to expect him, even though he’s driven two and a half hours to arrive at a place he’d never before been, without giving anyone notice of any kind.

“Have we met?” John manages as the man steps back, holding the door with one hand.

“Of course not. You’d have remembered meeting me.” He doesn’t introduce himself.

He’s not quite scoffing, but he’s not really friendly either. A bit arrogant. A bit of a prick.

John holds his ground. He didn’t drive all this way to turn tail and run. “Actually, I’m here to see Sherlock. Is he home?”

“Gone off to get something for the bees.” He smiles – malevolently? – at John. “He’ll want to see _you_ , though. Are you coming in or aren’t you?” 

“Are you going to introduce yourself?” John asks. He tries not to snip, but the man is really insufferable.

“Oh, come. John. You know who I am – the new sidekick? The new partner in crime? Surely the news has reached London by now.” 

“Actually – no.” John lies. He notes that the man has switched to using his given name. John. And he pronounces it just exactly like Sherlock does.

The other man sighs. He holds out his hand, exaggerating the formality.

“Holbrook,” he says.

John takes his hand. The other man’s grip is too light.

“Holbrook…?” He realizes he has no idea if this is the man’s first name, or last.

“Just Holbrook will do for now.” Holbrook withdraws his hand. “Now stop pretending you’re not coming in. Sherlock would murder me if I let you get away. We don’t want him going into a three-day sulk, do we?”

John follows Holbrook into the house. He isn’t happy about the comment about the sulk, but squares his shoulders and sets his mouth. The front room is clean, bright, barely furnished. The centerpiece is obviously the piano in the corner. Holbrook leads him through the room and down a corridor, then through the kitchen and into a pleasant sitting room.

John stops in the doorway. He knows his mouth has dropped open, and his head slides from left to right then left again as Holbrook sits on the sofa.

“Look familiar?” he says casually, lifting his feet and crossing them atop an ottoman.

“I like it.” John’s voice is brusque. The room is a replica of the sitting room at 221B down to their chairs - _their_ chairs. The wallpaper is different – thank God - and there aren’t any bullet holes in the case wall.

Of course not. John has the gun, not Sherlock.

“Go ahead.” Holbrook gestures to the chair. _John’s_ chair. “I know you’re dying to.”

John blinks but the room is still there – it’s even shaped like the sitting room at Baker Street. He eyes the chair, then slides his gaze back to Holbrook.

Holbrook rolls his eyes.

“That chair has been sitting there for five years, waiting for this moment. Sherlock doesn’t allow anyone to sit there.”

John moves slowly to the chair and drops into it. He’s looking for a rejoinder, a come back, but can’t seem to put his thoughts to words. Holbrook is annoying and pretentious. He can’t begin to see what Sherlock sees in him. Holbrook seems to know quite a bit about John. He’s enjoying this little game. 

“Where are my manners?” Holbrook is on his feet as soon as John is settled in his chair. “Tea, then?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, disappearing into the kitchen as John leans forward to pick up the newspaper from Sherlock’s chair. It’s a local rag – the biggest newspapers quit doing print copies years ago – and John opens it, folds it on his lap and gazes at a banner headline proclaiming “Sherlock and Holbrook Do it Again.”

John sighs. Unimaginative headline. Do _what_ again?

The article answers that question – local bank robbery. Five-year old cold case. Sherlock solved the case _and_ found the money. He pages through to page 5A to find a photograph of Sherlock and Holbrook. They’re standing very close to each other and Holbrook’s hand is on Sherlock’s shoulder. They’re smiling – Sherlock looks more happy than annoyed. 

Holbrook slides a mug of tea onto the table to John’s left. John folds up the paper and glances at the tea. The colour is perfect – just a touch of milk. The smell is sublime. 

He knows the tea will be just as he likes it – bit of milk, no sugar. 

“So, how long – how long have you known Sherlock, then?” he asks after tasting the tea and confirming his suspicion.

Holbrook has settled back onto the sofa. But now he’s holding Sherlock’s violin. John stares at him as he lifts the instrument and positions the bow. A fist clenches in his gut. 

Holbrook pauses. Smiles.

“We’ve known each other quite a long time, actually,” he answers. He looks at John appraisingly, and for some reason, John thinks Holbrook is amused by the conversation. “We reconnected a year ago.”

“A year, then?” John sips his tea again. It’s the perfect temperature, brewed to the strength he prefers. He keeps one eye on Holbrook. He really does not like Holbrook handling Sherlock’s violin but the man is casual about it, as if playing Sherlock’s violin is an everyday event here.

Holbrook draws the bow across the strings, then draws out a quick melody. He lifts his head. “Actually, we ran into each other at Mycroft’s. Sherlock was short a sidekick and needed help with a case. I came down here with him and things worked out.”

“What sort of help would Sherlock need with a case?” John asks. His voice comes out all wrong through his tight throat. He makes an effort to unclench his teeth. Sherlock doesn’t need help with cases – he sometimes needs backup, and that had been John’s job. He seriously doubts that Sherlock’s well-being ever figures in Holbrook’s priorities.

In response, Holbrook drops his cheek against the violin and plays a rousing round of Pop Goes the Weasel, then lifts the bow and looks sideways at John.

“I’ve an eidetic memory,” he says. He raises an eyebrow at John’s stare. “Photographic.”

“I know what an eidetic memory is,” John replies. He watches as Holbrook plucks absently at the violin strings. “Sherlock doesn’t have one – he uses his….”

“Mind palace,” they finish together.

John shifts uncomfortably. Is there anything Holbrook doesn’t know about Sherlock? His gaze flits around the room again. It makes no sense. His chair is here. No one is allowed to sit on it. But Holbrook is here too, in Sherlock’s dressing gown, handling Sherlock’s violin, acting like he’s known John for years.

“Perhaps I should go.”

“Mycroft told me about you, you know.” Holbrook ignores John’s statement and stands. “More tea?”

John shakes his head, but Holbrook pads out to the kitchen again. John grips the arms of his chair, feeling both at home and out of his element here. Where the hell is Sherlock? Maybe it would be better to leave before Sherlock gets back – cut his losses and avoid the decidedly difficult experience of seeing Sherlock and Holbrook – together.

Holbrook. He reminds him of someone – someone unpleasant – someone he and Sherlock encountered in their years at 221B, perhaps. He doesn’t trust him – the man doesn’t seem to think as highly of Sherlock as he should. At least he hasn’t given any indication to John as of yet that he admires Sherlock’s skills, thinks him brilliant. He’s so damn _casual_ about the whole thing.

And that’s the second time he’s mentioned Mycroft.

Holbrook is back within two minutes, this time with a plate of biscuits and the tea pot. He warms John’s tea, then slides the plate onto the table at his elbow.

“So Mycroft told you I’m left-handed and take my tea with milk and no sugar?” He glances at the plate, staring at the six biscuits arranged neatly on it. “And that I like Shortbread Fingers?”

Now Holbrook laughs. His laugh is normal enough, but John hears it only as condescending. 

“Mycroft told me you are Sherlock’s drug of choice,” answers Holbrook. “That you kept him from more dangerous drugs during the years of your…partnership.” He is standing at the window now, holding the violin again. He pulls the curtain back and looks outside. “You may as well bring your bag in. We’re not using the second bedroom upstairs.”

“No, I expect you’re not,” mumbles John.

Holbrook rolls his eyes, and doesn’t try to hide it from John. “At least you’ll get some sleep – I expect Sherlock will be up all night once he returns and finds you here.”

John shifts in his chair. He’s always loved this chair, and has never been able to find one that rivals it in comfort. But he’d be more comfortable now if Sherlock were here, sitting across from him, instead of Holbrook.

“Do you expect Sherlock soon, then?” he asks. He makes himself look directly at Holbrook. Breeding. Arrogance. Money. It’s all there – in his clothing, his expression, his speech patterns. And confidence. Holbrook doesn’t seem at all intimidated by John – by his friendship with Sherlock, his obvious importance to him. 

“When you lived with him, were you able to predict him?” Holbrook answers.

Actually, yes, John thinks. 

He thinks a lot of things.

He thinks that Holbrook isn’t right for Sherlock – that Sherlock has made a bad choice, and must be regretting it.

He thinks that Mycroft is an interfering old man.

He thinks that he’s jealous of Holbrook – much too jealous for a straight man who’s been Sherlock’s friend for more than twenty years.

He thinks Holbrook should not be playing Sherlock’s violin, and should definitely not know as much as he seems to about John.

He thinks that, perhaps, Holbrook should start sleeping in that unused second bedroom.

And he wonders what Sherlock sees in this man, this man with the photographic memory, this man who met Sherlock at Mycroft’s. Wasn’t that warning enough to Sherlock? What’s got into him these last years, since he left London for Sussex and his bloody bees?

“I hate those damn bees,” Holbrook says, out of the blue. He’s looking out the window again, shaking his head.

John immediately resolves to love them.

“You should fetch your things,” Holbrook says. “You’ll probably want to clean up before dinner. We’ll take you to Maddie’s in town.” He doesn’t offer to help – and John nods and stands, relieved to put distance between them. He winds back through the house the way he came in, leaving the door slightly ajar as he steps outside.

A car is coming up the drive – a small black sports car that cannot possibly be Sherlock’s. The car is moving much too fast, and skids to a halt behind his own. Sherlock unfolds himself from the car – showing much more dexterity and much less stiffness than John would - and they stare at each other for a protracted moment.

When Sherlock smiles, John cannot help but smile back.

“I didn’t expect you today,” Sherlock says at last. “I would have stayed home.”

John shrugs. “Thought I’d surprise you,” he says. “Surprise.”

Sherlock closes his car door and walks up to John’s car, then opens the back door and grabs his duffel bag. He slips the strap over his shoulder and walks toward John.

“I suppose you’ve already met Holbrook, then,” he says. There is a note of apology in his voice that John is somehow relieved to hear.

John shrugs again. He really doesn’t want to be reminded of Holbrook, the giant wrench in the works, the new partner, the man who’s somehow insinuated himself into Sherlock’s life and bed. Not that John has any claim to that bed, of course, despite a niggling curiosity about what goes on there. He just doesn’t want Holbrook in it, is all.

“You probably want an explanation, then. Did he tell you?”

“Tell me?” John doesn’t want to have this conversation, but he’s temporarily in control of it, so he plunges ahead. “He didn’t have to tell me. Even a dolt like me could deduce from all the clues he tossed at me – he lives here with you, solves cases with you. Wears your dressing gown. Plays your violin. He did let me sit in my chair, at least. Made me tea – which was perfect, by the way. Fed me Walker’s Shortbread Fingers.”

He looks at Sherlock, and he can’t help feeling betrayed, and hurt, which is ridiculous. He reminds himself – again – that he has no claim to Sherlock, but he dislikes Holbrook. His skin is prickly with it – and he feels dirty, like when he stood before Mycroft the first time in that warehouse.

Sherlock is only two steps away from him now. He’s studying John with those eyes that see all, and he’s smiling – he’s _smiling_. Grinning like the Cheshire cat.

“You don’t like him.” He sounds triumphant, as if he’s trumped John, somehow.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. I deduced it from all those clues you threw at me.”

“Fine.” They’ll just have it out here then. “I don’t see what you see in him.”

Sherlock looks at John and blinks. Twice. John sees it on his face, the moment when the pieces all fall into place as they stand in front of the too-tall shrubbery with the ridiculous black sports car parked behind John’s sensible dark grey sedan. Sherlock takes a step closer – he’s well into John’s personal space now – and drops the duffel bag. There’s a distinctive clink of metal as it falls and they both stare at it a moment, but no one says the obvious.

“You’ve made the wrong conclusion,” Sherlock says. He’s amused, but his eyes are soft with something John finds he likes very much. “It’s complicated, John. I really don’t know where to start.” He’s fumbling, stumbling, and John has the feeling he’s poking a hornet’s nest and his stick is far too short.

“At the beginning.” John squares his shoulders and steps back, just a step, to put a tiny bit of distance between them. There’s a surprising curl of arousal already, at the proximity, at the smell of Sherlock, at how silly he looked with that old duffel bag over his shoulder. He’s had the feeling before, he realizes, but always called it adrenaline, something else entirely. He folds his arms over his chest. “I have lots of time.”

Sherlock glances at the window, and even though it’s not the window of the room where he left Holbrook, John still wonders if Holbrook is there, looking out at them. He doesn’t feel watched – there’s no prickle at his neck – and he resists turning, keeps his gaze steady on Sherlock.

“Holbrook is my brother. My other brother.”

John stares. His mouth drops open. He’s a bomb, ready to explode. He remembers Sherlock, on his knees in that carriage, how expert Sherlock was at turning a bad situation to his advantage.

“Your other brother? The one you’ve never mentioned – not in twenty-five years?” His voice is louder than he’d like it, his throat tight with an emotion he can’t name. He is immensely relieved that Holbrook is not Sherlock’s lover. He is outraged that Sherlock has kept this from him – kept this secret. He believes him, because the pieces all slot together so smoothly. Holbrook is three-quarters Mycroft with a touch of Sherlock thrown in.

“He doesn’t use Holmes – Brook was my mother’s maiden name. John – it’s complicated.”

“Complicated,” John repeats. He isn’t really listening to Sherlock. He’s reviewing the last hour, the conversation with Holbrook. Replaying it within a different set of parameters, assumptions. 

“John?”

The tea. The chair. The biscuits. The drug of choice. 

John reaches into his pocket and feels his car keys. Glances at his car. Safe. Boring. Predictable. Everything Sherlock is not. Everything he doesn’t want to be himself. He glances at the sports car again.

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” he says. He walks over to the car and opens the passenger door and looks back at Sherlock, still standing beside his duffel. “Come on – you’re driving.”

The leather seat is warm against his back, the seatbelt tight across his chest, as they fly down the country road. 

“There’s a reason I never mentioned him,” Sherlock says. He handles the car superbly. It purrs beneath him. John is jealous of the car now, too, of the attention Sherlock gives it, of how smoothly he operates it.

“Later,” John says. He watches the road unfold before them. “Right now, I’d rather hear about your bees.”

The nervous tension in the car flies out the window as Sherlock exhales and grabs the rope John has thrown him.

“Well – let’s start with the basics,” he begins. There’s a small smile on his lips. John looks his fill at Sherlock’s familiar profile, feeling – again – both at home and out of his element here. “One queen per hive,” Sherlock continues.

“Then what the hell are we going to do with Holbrook?”

John grins at his joke, and Sherlock shakes his head but continues his impromptu lecture. John feels twenty years younger – for today, he’s no one’s husband, no one’s father, no one’s doctor. 

No one needs him today – except perhaps Sherlock. 

And today, John can live with that.

_TBC_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock tells John about Holbrook - and the long waiting ends.

Chapter 3

Sherlock tells John everything John could ever want to know about bees while he drives. 

John listens, and asks a question now and again, and enjoys the thrum of the car beneath him, and the sound of Sherlock’s voice beside him. Here, in this space so small there is room only for their legs in front of them, where they brush elbows every time Sherlock shifts gears, Sherlock’s focus is on the road, and John’s focus is on Sherlock. 

On his voice. As clear and resonant as always, though his cadence is a bit slower, more deliberate. 

On his hands – resting on the leather-bound wheel, on the knob of the gear shift – knuckles more prominent, nails clean, neatly shaped. Fingertips calloused from a life-long love affair with the violin. 

On his profile, the cheekbones no less prominent than they were twenty years ago. Hair greying at the temples, face carefully shaved, skin darker than John remembers, from a life outside of London, from more time in the sun. More time with the bees.

Sherlock tells him about Holbrook as they lean against a stone wall that marks the edge of an overlook, nothing between them and the ocean save fifty feet of vertical rock. John’s hands are in his jacket pockets and the wind is in his eyes. He watches birds as they wing over the water, and the sun as it slants in from its western descent. Sherlock stands beside him, close enough that their elbows graze sometimes, just as they did in the car.

The story is only believable when taken in the context of Sherlock, of Mycroft, of the Holmes family. Sherlock does not waste words. He lays out the entire story in the time it takes the sun to drop behind the horizon, for the gulls to return to roost. 

“He was all about excess, even in school. He loved to shock my parents – he was everything Mycroft was not. He had the attention span of a gnat – would grow bored with friends, lovers, jobs. In uni, he experimented with fringe sexual practices. He discovered auto-erotic asphyxiation when he was twenty, and his partner died during one of their sessions. Holbrook went to prison for five years – his sentence was extended after he was involved in an attack on a guard that left the man paralyzed. Later, he was involved in yet another altercation - also with a guard. This one was sexual in nature, and left my brother dead.”

To his credit, John says nothing. He presses his lips together and nods, looking out at the horizon. But he sees black marble before him, Sherlock’s name engraved in stone. 

“A year ago, he came out of service. He’d been working for Mycroft’s people the entire time. His eidetic memory, coupled with the fact that he had no identify and could be sculpted into anything they wanted – or needed – made him an ideal find. Father went to his grave thinking him dead.”

“And your mother?” John asks. It is the first time he’s spoken since they’d climbed out of the car.

“Will go to her grave not forgiving either of them.”

“How long have you known?”

Sherlock grips the top of the wall. He seems steady as a rock perched up here, but John remembers a different day, and looks down at the sea far below.

“A month or two before Bart’s,” Sherlock says. “It’s why they knew – Mummy and Father. That it wasn’t real.”

“Your brother – Mycroft,” John begins. He is clenching his teeth, and feeling fragments of the betrayal he thought he left behind him more than twenty years ago. He shakes his head and wills it away. It belongs to another day – another lifetime, really. “He’s a powerful man.”

“He’s ruthless. Single-minded. Utterly focused on the work.”

“That runs in the family,” John murmurs. Sherlock says nothing more, and John turns around, leans against the stones. He glances at the car – small and dark and foreign in this seascape setting. It’s Holbrook’s, he’s sure of it. But it fits Sherlock in a way that surprises him. “So that’s it? Dead but not dead?” He’s thinking _been there, done that_ and the thought shows on his face and betrays him.

Sherlock’s hands are still on the wall. “I wondered how you’d take it – considering.”

John laughs. “Honestly, Sherlock, I’m just ridiculously glad he’s not your lover.”

“He’s really an arse,” says Sherlock, smiling out into the sunset. “Mycroft on mood enhancement drugs. Perceptive as hell – nothing gets by him.” He pulls the car keys from his pocket and tosses them in the air. “But I do like his toys.”

“I approve.” John stands and stretches, rotating his bad shoulder. Sherlock tosses the keys up again and John snatches them out of the air. “You’ll let me drive back?”

Sherlock shrugs. They walk to the car together and Sherlock watches as John runs his hand lightly over the bonnet. He is unusually quiet, contemplative. “I’m wondering why you’re here, John.”

John’s fingers, grazing the polished surface, dance over the still-warm metal. He doesn’t know how to answer. He knows Sherlock knows, and doesn’t have to ask, but he feels he owes him an answer nonetheless. If he’s right – and he is, he knows he is – Sherlock’s been waiting a very long time for this and he can’t be glib or cavalier or make stupid jokes. This is serious. This is his second chance, and he doesn’t deserve it but he’s here and Sherlock hasn’t yet tossed him over the edge.

“Lestrade sent me,” he says at last. He smiles at Sherlock, and his eyes are warm, and a little sad. “I take it he knows Holbrook’s your brother?”

“Of course he knows,” Sherlock says. “He was here a month ago on a case and….” He trails off and they stand looking at each other across the roof of the car until Sherlock’s face breaks into a grin so familiar that John nearly aches with the memory of it.

“I knew there was a reason I kept him around all these years,” Sherlock says. 

They climb into the car then, no more words needed, and John starts it up. He sits there a moment, adjusting the seat, the mirrors, checking the controls. It has been a long, long time since he’s felt this way – an immediate attraction, to the danger, the speed, the styling, the beauty. He glances at Sherlock, then runs one hand over the steering wheel and drops the other to the gear shift. His fingers brush against Sherlock’s knee, which is splayed outward to accommodate his long frame. 

And suddenly, Sherlock’s hand is atop John’s. 

“There’s something else I should tell you – about Holbrook.”

John stares at their hands. Sherlock’s voice is low, and very serious.

“Go on, then,” John says. He wants this over, and out, so it can fade away. He’s ready to get on with life now, and Sherlock’s been so incredibly patient all these years, has given him time and space and everything he thought he wanted. He doesn’t want to wait anymore. There aren’t as many tomorrows in front of them as yesterdays behind them.

“Holbrook went on that mission in my place – after Magnussen. After Mycroft brought me back.”

John has no idea what to make of this. There is an indecipherable web among these brothers, and he doesn’t understand it. The statement weighs heavy in the air between them.

“He’s still a prick,” John says at last. “But yeah – I’ll thank him for that.”

“I would never have a lover like him,” Sherlock says quietly. His hand tightens on John’s and John feels those long fingers compressing his hand, squeezing his heart. “How could you think that?”

John laughs. His marriage, every woman he’s dated, every romantic thing he’s ever done in his life – none of it has prepared him for this moment with this man. He’s out of his depth here, floundering in a sea of might-have-beens, trying to get his head above water so he can breathe the new air of this new reality. He’s in the driver’s seat of a sexy car with the best, the most beautiful person he’s ever encountered. Literally, figuratively, the ball’s in his court. 

He’s always been a man of action, but when it comes to Sherlock Holmes, he’s forever following two steps behind.

“Come here, you idiot.” 

It’s his voice, coming from his throat, and it’s his hand reaching out, wrapping around Sherlock’s neck, pulling him toward him. These are his lips, John Watson’s lips, pressing against Sherlock’s mouth, kissing him, kissing him at last.

It is the stupidest, most ridiculous, most short-sighted thing he’s ever done – this – waiting twenty-five years for _this_. Because Sherlock is kissing him back, and it begins as something sweet, and almost shy, but then John’s hand is working up into Sherlock’s curls, and Sherlock groans and leans into him, and his hands come up to cup John’s face, holding him steady. He pulls back and stares into John’s eyes and John doesn’t know what he’s seeing, what he’s looking for, but Sherlock smiles, and the corners of his eyes crinkle. John pulls him forward again, and there is nothing sweet, or shy, about the desperation in _this_ kiss.

He tastes like life, like a gust of fresh air after a long winter indoors. He tastes of desperate hope, and blessed relief, and new beginnings. John breaks this second kiss reluctantly, and buries his face in the crook of Sherlock’s neck, and breathes him in, kisses his throat, memorizes the thrum of his pulse beneath his lips.

“Do you really loves bees?” Sherlock challenges, but his voice is tentative, unsure.

“I have no idea,” John answers. “But I love _you_.”

And really – isn’t it one and the same?

ooOOOoo

Holbrook has been busy while they’ve been gone. He’s found John’s duffel, and taken it inside, and unpacked it. He’s toying with John’s gun and talking on his mobile when they come in, and he lays the gun casually on the table, pockets the phone, and stands to greet them.

He’s an entirely different person from this side of the kiss, still haughty and arrogant, but so like Mycroft John cannot believe he didn’t see it earlier. And he’s suddenly a known force, a Holmes brother, something John understands, and he manages to keep a straight face until Holbrook, ignoring him entirely, grabs Sherlock by the shoulders and stares at him until Sherlock breaks and grins.

The smile on Holbrook’s face would look ridiculous on Mycroft. It looks rather silly on Holbrook, too, but John doesn’t try to understand the exceedingly complex relationship between Sherlock and Mycroft, and he certainly isn’t going to go down that road with Sherlock and Holbrook either. It’s enough to note that Holbrook seems genuinely happy for Sherlock, and when they all climb into the black SUV in the garage to go to Maddie’s for dinner, Holbrook gets into the driver’s seat and Sherlock directs John up front. Sherlock spends the fifteen minute drive studying his mobile, humming in the backseat, and Holbrook and John engage in polite and stilted conversation.

At dinner, when Sherlock excuses himself to use the gents, Holbrook spears a stalk of asparagus and looks at John.

“If you hurt him, I’ll kill you.” He says it so casually that he might as well have said “Pass the salt” or “The fish is dry.”

“I won’t hurt him,” John says. He is earnest. He means it. He won’t hurt Sherlock. It’s silly that two men of their age are having this conversation, anyway. 

Holbrook chews on his asparagus. He watches John silently as John’s face softens when Sherlock comes back into view.

“He’s waited half his life for you,” Holbrook says oh so softly, barely moving his lips.

“I know,” John answers. He picks up a roll. “I’m an idiot.”

“Yes. You are,” says Holbrook.

Back at the cottage, Holbrook disappears into the second upstairs bedroom – there are two upstairs, John now knows, and one down, where Sherlock sleeps. Sherlock watches his brother climb the stairs, and there is an awkward moment when they just look at each other. They haven’t actually discussed John staying, though his duffel speaks of his intentions. They haven’t discussed sleeping arrangements, or whether John wants to clean up after his drive, or what Sherlock does in the evening after his brother goes to bed. 

John glances away from Sherlock, at the telly. He finds the remote, and turns it on, then settles on one end of the sofa. The volume is low, and he doesn’t adjust it, but he flips through the channels, and he doesn’t know how it’s possible, or what greater power is smiling down on him to help this transition, but he finds himself watching a documentary on bees. 

Sherlock sits beside him a moment later and settles in. It’s still awkward at first, but they fall into an old pattern, with Sherlock challenging the narrator, challenging the material, making rude comments about the quality of the research, and John insisting that he’s just making things up. Before the show is over, Sherlock is curled up beside John, head resting on his left thigh, and John’s hand is in his hair, his thumb tracing small circles at the base of Sherlock’s neck.

And it’s not too far off from the domestic scenes of life at 221B in the days before Bart’s, and the fall, and Mary. The arguments are the same ones, John’s exasperation at Sherlock’s dialogue with the show’s narrator a near mirror of his reaction to watching television with Sherlock in those early days. He’s older now - _they’re_ older now – and if Sherlock’s wit is less biting, then John’s annoyance is more perfunctory.

John nods off first, and he doesn’t have to make any awkward conversation or uncomfortable decisions as Sherlock gives him a hand to stand, then leads him into the bedroom downstairs where all of his things are already unpacked and stowed away in drawers and cupboards.

The bed is soft, the sheets and pillows smell of Sherlock. Still half asleep, it is the easiest thing he has ever done to sit on the edge and tiredly remove shirt and trousers, shoes and socks, unconcerned about his middle-aged paunch and greying chest hair and the hole in his vest beneath his arm. He drops his glasses onto the bedside table beside the gun he doesn’t recall placing there, and settles in beside Sherlock.

Sherlock’s hand finds his. John rubs his thumb back and forth over Sherlock’s. This is not the first time he’s held Sherlock’s hand – he’s been at his bedside before, tortured by guilt, babbling promises, making deals with God and the devil, with anyone who held sway over Sherlock’s life. John turns his head on the pillow as Sherlock does the same. Six inches separate them, then four, then two. They kiss, sleepy and relaxed, turn on their sides, claim a single pillow. John rubs his stubble against Sherlock’s cheek, presses his mouth to his Adams apple, rests his head on his chest. He is too tired for anything more, too happy to have even this. He falls asleep to the steady thrum of Sherlock’s beating heart, and wakes in the morning to sun filtering through the window, and Sherlock propped against the headboard, mobile in hand. Sherlock glances at John as he shifts out of sleep, into consciousness. John blinks, staring at the stubble on Sherlock’s cheek, wanting nothing more in this moment than to rub his chin against it.

“Lestrade says ‘you’re welcome’ and that if I hurt you, he’ll have to kill me.”

John’s glad Lestrade has his back, and that Holbrook has Sherlock’s, but here, now, it’s just the two of them. He raises his hand and rubs it against Sherlock’s cheek, and Sherlock presses into it in a gesture so feline that John is tempted to stroke beneath his chin.

Lestrade would laugh at them now, poised like this, two men well past their prime, on the brink of something more. It’s tender, and romantic, and everything they’ve never been. It’s cliché, John knows, but it’s a time for new beginnings. 

Here – here at last – at the cusp of their denouement.

_Fin_


End file.
